


A Father's Blessing

by smileslikesunset



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3392792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileslikesunset/pseuds/smileslikesunset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have been here before. Same boy. Different daughter. Ever since she came home with you the day your little girl bounded towards you after her third day of kindergarten and said her new friend's mom had forgotten to pick her up, the little blonde girl with the guarded blue eyes and hidden smile was yours. Lucaya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Father's Blessing

You have been here before. Same boy. Different daughter. And as the student you have taught since the seventh grade stands before you with his hands stuffed in jean pockets, and a nervous flutter in his gaze as he tries to keep his face held high you realize he isn't a boy any longer. In the five years that have passed between the time he first entered your classroom, a sheepish smile on his face as he tried to decide the best way to adjust from his southwestern roots to the bustle of city life, to what is now his junior year of high school where he has somehow become a man.

You aren't sure if you like this.

"What can I help you with, Mr. Friar?" You ask, even though you know what this is about. Heck, you've known this day was coming for a while now.

People don't seem to realize just how much teacher's see, especially ones that have seen the same students grow up before them for the last five years. You've seen things. You have seen heights change and thoughts mature. You have seen best friends stick together and you have seen them fall apart, home lives' break and repair themselves, and you have seen students collapse under the pressure that life was starting to pour over their heads and you have seen them face it like David and Goliath, throwing rocks at each giant the world threw their way one by one. He has seen it all with only 45 minutes a day for five days each week.

You remember your seventh grade World History class and the first time Lucas had stayed after class. He had been cockier than, less importance riding in the question he was planning to ask you. It wasn't that he wasn't nervous; he was still somewhat nervous, but at only fourteen getting your crush's father's blessing to take her to the movies is not the most important thing in the world. That is because, even though the boy has yet to realize it, this girl is not the one that he is willing to fight for, at least not romantically. You know this because you have glimpsed the future in the tiniest exchanges and snarky comments, and so when he asks you if he can have permission to date your daughter you want to scream absolutely not at the top of your lungs and shake his head because teenage boys are stupid, grown men are stupid and pretty much anyone with a penis is a certified idiot.

You want to tell him that you know he likes Riley now, as she should because she is an amazing and bright young girl, but that the flirty little smiles you exchange in first period history don't mean anything when you actually start dating and that stealing a kiss in middle school means so much less than the kisses you will share when he is older and his mind is a little clearer and who he actually is going to want to kiss swoops in right from under his nose and bonks him in the head. And that will only be after the heartbreak, because no matter serious or short their relationship he is still going to put a crack in your daughter's heart. And you want to protect that heart more than anything in the world. But you couldn't, because part of letting her see the world is making her own choices and Lucas Friar, despite being young and a boy, is not a bad kid. So you said yes, and that afternoon your beautiful daughter came home with a smile on her little face as she told you her plans to go to the movies.

But then there was your other daughter.

Ever since she came home with you the day your little girl bounded towards you after her third day of kindergarten and said her new friend's mom had forgotten to pick her up, the little blonde girl with the guarded blue eyes and hidden smile was yours. You helped feed her, reminded her to do her homework. You have seen her smile as wide as a sunset and laugh with the jaunt of a girl whose mother isn't ever home and whose biological father didn't leave her when she was four years old. You have also seen her wipe tears from her eyes; cry because she can't understand why she is always left behind and what about her makes it so easy for people to leave.

And continue to watch her even six years later. She is still best friends with your little girl, and she is still just as much your daughter as the day she curiously watch you speak to her mother in low voices ending with, "Maya is always welcome in our home." You have never broken this promise, because this has become her home as much as it is yours. She is watching her best friend with a guarded smile you haven't seen in your apartment in a while and realize that Lucas might be causing heartbreak for one of your girls sooner than you first thought.

Because you see the light in her eyes every time the country boy counters her teasing with a witty comment of his own. And how she tries to roll her eyes at his moral commentary on historical events, but can't help but show that she is somewhat impressed that someone can have the courage to call the world out on its problems and then offer a solution to fix it. You see how she tends to look away whenever he laughs at a comment Riley has made despite it not being very funny, or how he calls the skinny brunette pretty in an offhanded, but sincere manner.

Riley doesn't see it.

Nor does his little girl see how the native Texan goes out of his way to grab the blonde girl's attention, like how he comes to class with a new cowboy hat on everyday for a week just to see her roll her sea-blue eyes and give a snarky retort. She doesn't notice how the tanned boy frowns the first time he hears Maya call your little brother her husband, or quietly roll his eyes as she continues to openly flirt with the teenage Matthews boy. He doesn't even know he is doing it, and if he did he would not know what it means.

So you watch as he begins to date your first daughter, the one you held in your arms the day she was born and promised to give your life for. You watch as they begin to innocently hold hands. He treats her the way a father expects a young man to treat their little girl. You see them spend a year perfectly content in one another's company, and then you see high school come and your daughter's insecurities just starting to sprout in her adolescence blossom into her teenage years. You see them stop passing notes in your classes, and no longer wait for one another at lockers between bell chimes as the day goes on. You see your little girl's beautiful smile disappear as you casually mention her boyfriend's name, and watch helplessly outside an open bedroom door as you see the baby girl you named Riley cry into her best friends' shoulder as she explains that she has just fallen out of her first love, a love she is too young to know whether or not was actually love but still hurts as if it was.

There are some things you don't wanna see, because when their sad you are sad, and when Maya asks with all the seriousness a girl like her has in such matters if Riley wants her to go beat the idiot cowboy up it takes all your willpower and your wife's firm grip on your shoulder to keep from bounding over to the petite blonde and suggesting a tag team.

You see time heal wounds you can't, and awkward shifting gazes turn into half smiles and shy hellos until she can say his name at the dinner table again without everyone having to hold their breath and tiptoe around the conversation like a land mine. You see them become friends again, and you watch as he manages to receive your unspoken forgiveness even though the only thing he did wrong was have a middle school crush on a kind girl and end up finding out they were better suited as friends, learning the girl with the blue eyes and sly smirk he thought was only ever going to be a friend turn into more than a little crush.

Because you saw that too. You saw their banter turn into friendship, and problems with deadbeat parents and dreams for a better future turn into kinship. You noticed how he began to stare at her blonde curls in class, blinking slowly with a blush rushing to his handsome face as you called him out in class for not paying attention. You watched her yell at him for defending her against a punk senior boy in their sophomore year, starting with a loud "I can take care of myself" and ending in a quiet "thank you."

Riley begins to see it to.

She sees it after you pick her best friend up in your arms in middle of the school hallway, a crowd of curious and scared onlookers forming around them as you call out to the passed out girl and Lucas Friar makes his way to the front with a scared look in his green eyes as he demands to follow them in the ambulance. She sees it as the high school baseball star volunteers to take Maya her homework to her after school the few days the blonde is forced to miss school, and how when she returns he is never without a candy bar in his backpack pocket in case her blood sugar gets too low. He isn't going to let Maya scare him again and Riley sees this. Really, she has seen everything, but it is only now that she understands it. And her smile as she watches Maya roll her eyes at Lucas' insistence she nibble on a snickers throughout the day and the boy tip his imaginary hat at her when she finally agrees, allows you to accept what you understood since you were their teacher in the seventh grade. Because even if Maya is your daughter, Riley was your child first and all you really want is for both of them to be happy.

Now Lucas is in front of you, and you have to try to keep from laughing at the anxious look on his face as he manages to say, "I wanted your permission to take Maya out to a movie this weekend."

You casually shuffle the papers on your desk, taking your time to make sure they are still in alphabetical order before returning your attention to the nervous boy in front of you. Just because you forgave him doesn't mean you don't enjoy making him suffer.

"I believe that is more up to Maya than it is me," you say finally looking the boy in the eyes and raising both brows in his direction. You watch as he let out a breath, a hopeful look in his eyes that reassures you that you have made the right choice, even if you don't want to admit it.

"Is that a yes then, sir?" he asks.

You walk around your desk and raise you hand, and the Friar boy winces as if he thinks you are about to hit him but instead you give him a friendly pat on the back and nod your head. After a moment he smiles back at you.

"Thank you, sir," he says making his way towards the door to head to his next class, but you raise a hand to stop him.

"Mr. Friar," you say and he stops and returns his attention on you. You lower your voice, making sure he listens carefully to what you are about to say. Because all boys are idiots no matter how much they have grown since you met them. " If you think you can be responsible for hurting both of my daughters you are very wrong. I suggest if you want to keep playing baseball, or breathing, you don't make that mistake. Understand?"

Lucas nods, and you think there is hope for him yet as he takes you're warning like a command. "Understood, sir."

You watch the girl with the guarded smile grin as wide as the sunset as she comes home for dinner that night, and you continue to watch her even after she graduates your high school classroom and you no longer see her for 45 minutes a day five days a week. You watch him too, the boy from Texas. Because she is your daughter, and the ring she displays for you as she quietly asks if you will walk her down the aisle only six year later tells you that you might have just gotten another son.

But you already knew that. He asked your permission three months ago.


End file.
